This post was originally on my blog and touches on the controversial pastor, Mark Driscoll, over whom I have been having an interesting exchange at Church Discipline. I have observed that debate about him inevitably turns into comp-egal discussions, so I’m posting it here to get the blog rolling.
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Axiom: If you want to get conservative church folk really riled up, talk about s-e-x…out loud…on Sunday morning…in the sermon…and skip the metaphors. That’s the reaction pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle is getting from many prominent Christians in the evangelical world. In the latest iterations of protest against Driscoll, Bott Radio Network interrupted one of its programs midway and cancelled another program’s scheduled radio interview at the behest of the network’s founder, Dick Bott, just for featuring Driscoll. According to conservative publications and commentators, like the Baptist Press and others, Mark Driscoll is on a Christian no-no list for saying no-no things, if you get my drift. Among the adjectives used for his language are “vulgar”, “unwholesome,” “coarse,” “filthiness,” and so forth.
It is a fact that Driscoll offends conservative Christian sensibilities concerning sex talk with non-PG language. Now here’s a question that I have: Since when is sex ever rated PG? Sex is for the married. You can be married only if you are 18 (in most states). And, if you are over 18, what about talking about sex should really offend? Why should the fact that he says “sex” out loud and not “s-e-x” give adults with mature attitudes trouble, except if they are not so mature after all?
After reviewing several blog rants and even a four-part article dedicated to criticizing Driscoll’s sermons on the Song of Solomon (which quickly boil down to criticisms about his person and faith), I cannot help but become aware of the river of problems under the church running far deeper than the issue of Mark Driscoll’s mouth. For example, sex is almost always discussed negatively. Driscoll himself observes that the primary message sent to most church youth is that “sex is gross…it’s dirty, nasty, vile, and wrong, so save it for the one you love.” How many Christian couples suffer in silence over sexual issues because they’ve been conditioned to think that sex is too taboo to discuss at church and among believers? In response, some believers might consider the wisdom of the secular world and then struggle over appealing to a source that is so maligned within the church as well. Church, which should be the safest place on earth to talk about healthy sexuality, is sadly the most unsafe and the last place anyone dares talk about it.
I listened to a fair share of Driscoll’s sermons, especially the ones that relate to this topic. There could be the rare occasion that he gets graphic in such a way that might offend (but in listening to three+ hours–and counting–of sermons, I have yet to hear anything even close). I’ve come to the opinion that the messages he delivers are far more important to the listener than the concerns of his critics. He is neither vulgar nor treats sex in marriage as a joke. Vulgarity demeans and degrades people or actions. Driscoll is doing the opposite. He is trying to save marriages and relationships. Not only that, he is trying to save wedded bliss from being the stuff of fairytales and/or the first two weeks of marriage.
Marriage is sacred, which is exactly why Driscoll’s sex talk is badly needed in the evangelical world. Our churchgoers no longer know what the body is used for and how to enjoy it in the way we were created. We have allowed the ungodly secular world determine what is impermissible and “dirty” for believers instead of believers charging the world with its perversion and taking back sexual pleasure under the dominion of the kingdom of God.
Mark Driscoll in general makes people with conservative sensibilities uneasy and takes the fun out of being a liberal. I gotta say that I kind of like that.
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July 16, 2009: Comments are now closed on this post. (Wayne Leman)
I was so prepared to hate Mark Driscoll…until I actually listened to him. I started with the Religion Saves series. And liked it. I’ve listened to several others and like him more. I recently finished the Peasant Princess series and have never, in three decades of listening to sermonds, NEVER EVER heard the subject of sex treated with the gravity and grace it deserves. Every married couple should watch/listen to that series. Every engaged couple should do the same. And other pastors should listen and take a leaf out of Driscoll’s book and try it too.
Agree and disagree. Nothing new there.
Sex isn’t something one should be liberal about in my opinion. Yes, I’m a conservative.
Talking about sex in the course of a sermon on marriage is quite acceptable. Sex is not ‘dirty or gross’ as it used to be in the 20’s-50’s and before. That isn’t the point. Delving into more intimate aspects though would be more appropriate within a course study for marrieds only IMO. As one who has been single for about 19 years, I get nothing beneficial out of hearing what is supposed to be a spiritual sermon drawing one closer to Christ, end up a rather vivid description of sexual techniques, frequency, etc. For me, it is almost pornographic audio. I don’t need to see it nor do I need to hear about it in that kind of detail on Sunday morning. And frankly, I don’t think teenagers or the never married need to hear it either. The youth with their higher hormone drives, are even more easily distracted than a senior single person. And frankly IMO his interpretation of Song of Solomon was very inaccurate.
I don’t know how many times he talked about it, but if it were only once I doubt he’d get this much flack on it. Once was way more than enough for me.
Those who enjoy his sermons including his views of marriage and the intimacies within marriage are welcome to praise him and appreciate all of it. We are each entitled to our own preferences on what one likes or dislikes in styles, presentations, doctrines, theology, interpretations, etc. And we should all be gracious in allowing each Christian their preferences.
It may well be that Driscoll hopes to save marriages with his recent choices of topics and interpretations. For that intent, he is applauded. Whether his recent sermons will accomplish it, is probably best left to each individual who hears.
I agree, from the little I have heard of him, Mark Driscoll doesn’t deserve the criticism of being course or filthy in his language. He is certainly blunt and doesn’t avoid the topic of sex but neither does the Bible. Maybe being Australian helps
I listened to only about 15 minutes of the Peasant Princess talk which seemed to cop the most criticism: the part where he talked about the twin fawns. He was blunt but what appalled me was the way people criticised him for being vulgar etc but didn’t comment on the dreadful exegesis. He is simply a careless exegete.
I have listened to sermons of his maybe 4 or 5 times and each time there has been a point where I have been struck by some piece of bad exegesis. The twin fawn one was how he said something along the lines of ‘Where do you find deer? In a zoo.’ Where there zoos when S of S was written? Powerful kings may have had game parks or even collections of animals but the modern idea of a zoo was probably not in the author’s mind. And Driscoll then goes ‘Where do you find baby deer – in the petting zoo.’ Petting zoos, in the Ancient Near East. He’s got to be joking.
This is what should have been criticised, not his talking about sex.
For example, sex is almost always discussed negatively. Driscoll himself observes that the primary message sent to most church youth is that “sex is gross…it’s dirty, nasty, vile, and wrong, so save it for the one you love.”
I’ve never heard that message about sex in any church in any church I’ve ever attended. And I have attended several.
I think it would be better if churches brought in Christian marital counselors to do seminars for engaged and married people on the topic of sex.
To be honest, when it comes to sexual intimacy I don’t think the church should get involved. This is something a Christian couple can get help with in counseling. There is just too much controversy about sexual techniques to bring it into the church and perhaps cause division over it.
I have observed that debate about him inevitably turns into comp-egal discussions
LOL don’t they all these days?!
I appreciate what Driscoll is trying to do but agree with Amanda in that, in what little of his I’ve read/heard, some of his exegesis was surprisingly poor.
He is very often guilty of poor exegesis. I am surprised at how infrequently this is mentioned when the discussion is about Mark Driscoll.
I agree with JLP that marital counseling should come from a counselor. Either in private or in a class about marital issues. I think that Pastor Driscoll does far, far too much counseling from the pulpit, which is mistaken for Bible teaching. It’s not.
(cross-commented on Talitha, Koum!)
For the record, I listened to all the sermons in the Peasant Princess series. I heard nothing that wasn’t carefully stated to avoid gratuitous offense. What most of MD’s critics disliked was the Q&A section where they handled very frank questions with frank answers. Not only that, they fielded more questions on the church blog of a graphic nature. Personally, I don’t know why this should bring accusations of vulgarity–it seems overblown and unjustified.
About the “two fawns” thing: Amanda said He’s got to be joking. Exactly! I took it as fairly obvious that MD was not making serious exegesis but interjecting some humor. It’s a little off-color, but by no means crass or offensive.
BTW, personally, I really liked the exegesis of the Song of Solomon. It only makes sense that if Jewish adolescents were forbidden to read it that it is as sexually charged as MD claims.
“About the “two fawns” thing: Amanda said He’s got to be joking. Exactly! I took it as fairly obvious that MD was not making serious exegesis but interjecting some humor. It’s a little off-color, but by no means crass or offensive.”
What makes you think he was joking? And is that kind of joking really acceptable in church settings? I could see that kind of joking between a couple married couples over a private dinner. But I’m not so certain it is acceptable in public revenue’s.
Amanda, I didn’t hear about the two fawns. What an interesting, uhm, view.
But I did listen to part two of his series because someone challenge me to do so.
Like the others, I agree that he actually had some very good things to say about marriage and sex. I really didn’t find him to be particularly vulgar.
But when he got right down to explaining the actual verses of Song of Solomon…
Wow.
Poor exegesis is a good way to describe it.
He makes verses out to say things that they simply don’t say. He reads way more into certain verses than what they could possibly hold. It is as though he starts with a version of the way sex and marriage are supposed to be according to him and works from there to make Songs say what he wants it to say.
And yes. That’s the part that bothers me. Not the sex talk, not the alleged vulgarity. But rather playing fast and loose with scripture.
But then I have a hard time with most Bible teachers who claim that Song of Solomon is ONLY about married sex and that there cannot possibly ever be anything allegorical about it. Driscoll makes it worse for me by making fun of the idea that the Songs might be allegorical and saying that it can’t be because if it was…
Okay. I can’t repeat that part because it is very offensive. It may not be offensive to those who hold to the ’sex only’ interpretation of SOS. But it is offensive to me.
Letetia,
we cross posted.
When I watched part two, I admit, it got to be too long and I skipped the question and answer section. So I don’t know about whether or not I would find that section to be vulgar.
I was having a hard enough time with other parts of it.
jlp,
You wrote:
To be honest, when it comes to sexual intimacy I don’t think the church should get involved. This is something a Christian couple can get help with in counseling.
Wow, I think the exact opposite. And here, I’m a staunch conservative and I believe the church has made talking about sex so off-limits that ignorance and the dysfunction of the secular society becomes all that Christians know. I find that tragic and unacceptable. I welcome a pastor that thinks similarly that is impassioned to preach against it.
To clarify, I’m not for the public airing of laundry or kiss and tell. But Christians should be free to talk about sex in a redemptive and healthy manner, something I see absent in the church today.
As an aside, all Christian couples should receive some counseling and not just because of marital difficulties.
What makes you think he was joking? And is that kind of joking really acceptable in church settings?
believer3,
All I can recommend is for you to listen for yourself to see if he was serious. And the question over whether such jokes are really acceptable is just what the controversy is on the right.
“I’m a staunch conservative and I believe the church has made talking about sex so off-limits that ignorance and the dysfunction of the secular society becomes all that Christians know. I find that tragic and unacceptable.”
True! My problem is the idea of it being discussed in preaching. IMO preaching should be about worship of God, basic doctrines, basics of Christianity and Christian life, teaching Scripture, exegeting Scripture…. all with an ultimate purpose of pointing all toward Christ and drawing Christians toward a more intimate relationship with God. Things having to do with with frank and pointed dialogue on sexuality IMO should be either in the privacy of classes for married couples or in couple counseling. I don’t call that off limits. I called it orderly.
Part of the problem may be that today fewer and fewer pastors are doing shepherding, home visits, and personal counseling. More are concentrating on preaching and church business organization.
“And the question over whether such jokes are really acceptable is just what the controversy is on the right.”
As a conservative, I find off color or sexual jokes unspiritual and unacceptable from a church pulpit. Sure they are fine between married couples. As a single person, I do not wish to hear sexual jokes. It takes my mind to places I have no interest in being.
Interestingly, particularly because Driscoll deeply disturbs me, his discussions on sex generally don’t.
I have no problem with Song of Solomon being viewed through the lens of physical sex because I think, well, that was part of what it was written for. Babylonian imagery is strewn through-out, and anyone who calls Jesus the “Rose of Sharon,” or the “Lily of the Valley” doesn’t understand that. (Not so subtle hint: flower/garden is another word for the woman’s…part).
I love how it’s always said to be “marital love,” because, well, I’m not so sure Solomon waited to consumate, and I’m also pretty darn positive good ol’ Solly wasn’t, um, exactly faithful to his “one-and-only” (not!), so using it as a missive for monogomous love is maybe pushing it a little far, but all the same, it’s kind of neat to see that God is not only NOT afraid of sex, but seems to think that it can be a pretty intoxicating thing, intended for pleasure, passion, delight, not just for baby-making.
It’s (*my opinion*) the authoritarian stuff, the misogynistic stuff, and the super-insecure-man stuff that sets off red flags for me when it comes to Driscoll, and those flags go up regularly when I listen to him (so, um, now I don’t). *That* stuff deeply bothers me, not the actual art of telling a good joke or being a goofball or screwing up sometimes or speaking bluntly about things that are generally a normal and regular part of being human.
Years and years ago, Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church started somewhat of a side ministry based on his verse-by-verse exposition of the Song of Solomon as a manual/guide to courtship, dating, marriage and sex. In fact, his church grew from hundreds to thousands when he taught it as a Bible study in Dallas at the former location of Prestonwood Baptist Church, IIRC. It appears to me from looking at the SOS Website that Mark Driscoll may have built his teaching off Tommy’s series and/or developed one closely related to his:
http://www.songofsolomon.com/sos_conference.asp
The conference event schedule listed on the above page follows Tommy’s topics exactly.
I haven’t listened to the Driscoll material, but I’m very familiar with Nelson’s teaching and have it in audio and video form (we attended his church for 5 years). Now you have me curious re: how much of what Mark says/teaches mirrors what Tommy has taught.
I’m working off memory here, but one of the Peasant Princess sermons was about the Dance of Manahaim (? Not sure of the name). In this sermon, Pastor Driscoll basically gave advice for wives to be generous with their husbands by allowing their husbands to regularly view them au natural . As I remember, he also encouraged husbands to give wives positive responses and to love the wives (and their wives’ shapes, whatever they are).
I think this is good advice.
I think he did a good job delivering this advice.
But preaching? No. I repeat, it was good advice and a good delivery. A terrific class in understanding husbands and wives (well, mostly husbands, but he was kind and considerate to the wives, too. And that’s okay)
I guess I don’t know exactly where I draw the line on this, but the end result is that I’d rather leave a sermon thinking about God and not myself (my marriage, my parenting, my this, my that, me, me, me). I understand that application of Scripture is important, but entire sermons about be visually generous with my husband? Sigh.
Just a side note — in recent material on sex/husband-wife relationships by comps that I’ve read (I’m thinking of Barbara & Dennis Rainey at the moment), there is suspect, boundary-crossing advice, and encouragement to think about even marital sex in an inappropriate manner.
It strikes me as an attempt to make Christians and Christian living not appear prudish, and to promulgate the view that sex is very good (which it is, of course, in the right context), but in the process cheapens it and encourages lustful thinking, imo. The saying of which no doubt makes *me* appear prudish, but oh well. LOL
I think that the setting in which sex is discussed should determine just how, specifically, it is discussed. For example, a young wife should not go up to a male conference speaker and ask for his advice as to whether or not she should greet her husband @ the door dressed only in Sarah wrap, if that’s what he wants. (I’m not making this up — it’s at the Family Life website!)
Eric,
Tommy Nelson happened across a church builder subject. Driscoll is very much into building large churches. It’s one of the new impetus’s of the young Seminary college grads (big money). As well, he thoroughly enjoys talking.
The conference subjects sound great. Of course I don’t know how explicit they got. Likely they didn’t get very specific on details or the Christian world would have been reeling over it. That is Driscolls problem. He likes the shock factor attention. And it gets him more listeners.
My problem with Driscoll is that he doesn’t point me toward the Lord in any deep way. In fact he is more of a distraction. I like Christian messages that draw me to think deeply of God’s glory, power, love, mercy, knowledge, etc, etc.
ack, “SaraN” wrap, LOL (And I just accidentally typed “warp” and had to correct it! LOL Time to get off the computer!)
believer3 wrote:
As a conservative, I find off color or sexual jokes unspiritual and unacceptable from a church pulpit.
Generally, I agree although I don’t think it’s a big deal when a pastor pushes the envelope a little. JMO, MD has stayed within reasonable bounds and I think his critics need to relax.
Bonnie,
I don’t think MD speaks the way he does in order to resist a “prudish” image. His message is that the sexual immorality that secular society exalts as being better than married, monogamous sex is a) as a proposition, utterly false and we should not believe it, but b) in practice very much true and exposes lots of unhealthy views about sex in marriage that keep people from enjoying their spouses fully (and most of the time we don’t make that connection).
I read comments from the Raineys, and I don’t think there’s much merit to saying that some sexual techniques are inappropriate, even in marriage. There are no biblical injunctions about sex that isn’t covered under redemption and freedom in Christ. If we were to go off the SOS alone, there is much more sexual stuff that goes on in there than I think goes on in lots of Christian bedrooms (I’m just guessing–I don’t know what you do, and I don’t want to!).
IMO it’s very sad that in the place where a couple should experience the most pleasure and intimacy, we start imposing rules that don’t exist.
TL,
My problem with Driscoll is that he doesn’t point me toward the Lord in any deep way. In fact he is more of a distraction. I like Christian messages that draw me to think deeply of God’s glory, power, love, mercy, knowledge, etc, etc.
In touchy areas like sex, perception is reality. MD’s sermons have had the opposite effect on me. I’m drawn to the realization that God cares about my sex life, that He created marriage as a package deal that includes having the most fun two people can have together (“naked and not ashamed” – it’s hard to miss the implication. I’m free to experience this slice of creation as He intended. It is a blessing that I feel more grateful, more thankful, and more worshipful of Him for.
A friend of mine said once that, as believers, everything is worship. Praying is worship; eating is worship; how “everything” doesn’t include bedroom intimacy doesn’t make sense. We can’t leave God out of the bedroom, so why should we leave the glories of sex out of the church? That doesn’t make sense to me.
When preachers on Sunday’s and in public settings with mixed audiences start speaking as if this were a couple’s dinner, then those of us who are single are forced to listen in on their intimate details.
True, congregations are mixed company and sermons don’t have immediate application to everyone all the time. When my pastors speak on adult subject matters, people are notified ahead of time so they can decide how to handle it with their children. Even if you are single, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have a biblical view of sex regardless. It’s good theology. MD addresses this specifically.
Could he have made this series a marrieds-only event aside from Sunday morning? Perhaps. But there are a lot of sexually promiscuous singles and teens in his church on Sunday morning (as also in all of ours; we just might not acknowledge it), so I think it is a very good move to put this front and center. People need to hear this–if you have, I think you’d agree that MD doesn’t encourage lustful thinking in the pews.
Molly,
It’s the authoritarian stuff, the misogynistic stuff, and the super-insecure-man stuff that sets off red flags for me when it comes to Driscoll
Yeah, it sounds that way, until I realized that it wasn’t. He has a strong point of view. But he doesn’t hate women and I couldn’t pass judgement on whether he’s insecure or not.
Honestly Leticia – I find Driscoll’s way of talking about sex offensive. Please just accept that. I am what I am.
Letitia – Driscoll has turned me off massively in the way he talks about women. Reading your arguments in his favor hasn’t changed my mind.
I am not going to try to convince you Driscoll is offensive, just because I find him that way. Somethings are just personal opinions. People disagree and there’s nothing you can do about it.
“I’m drawn to the realization that God cares about my sex life, that He created marriage as a package deal that includes having the most fun two people can have together (”naked and not ashamed” – it’s hard to miss the implication. I’m free to experience this slice of creation as He intended. It is a blessing that I feel more grateful, more thankful, and more worshipful of Him for. ”
As another commenter on another blog pointed out:
Perhaps God did not care about Sabina and Richard Wurmbrands sex life as they spent so much time in prison apart for His Name Sake?
Why has Christendom become so flesh centered? It is all about US and our needs/wants. What if your husband became crippled? Would you believe that God still cared about your sex life?
What amuses me is that 100 years ago, Driscoll would be arrested by agnostics for his sex talk in public. 100 years ago, Christians would have been arrested by agnostics for wearing bikini’s on the beach. Some think this means society has evolved for the good. What it might really mean is that Christians are now more like the world. And they are focusing on sex more now. Many churches are. Ed YOung put a bed on stage. Some are even using it in their advertising and getting complaints from the secular world!
I agree with TL that this talk only makes people focus MORE on sex instead of Christ. After all, married folks figured this out for thousands of years without graphic talks from their pastors. But it seems to be more about our flesh than Christ. That really bothers me.
I also noted in one sermon (can’t remember where) when Mark was talking about 2 specific forms of sex, he preached the opposite of what 1 Corin 7 teaches. You gotta watch him, he is so bold and self assured, folks do not check his exegesis.
In any event, it is like Mark is saying to singles, widows, the crippled: Don’t think pink.
The sex stuff does fill the pews, though. When we put on the SoS road show, it always sold out.
jlp,
Agreed.
Hi Letitia,
I wasn’t saying that MD is trying to resist the “prudish” image, but that some other comp voices are (at least, that’s the only explanation I can think of that makes sense of their approach).
I agree with you wholeheartedly that healthy sexuality is to be fully embraced in marriage. Those of us in older, more repressed generations perhaps feel this even more keenly. When I speak of the Raineys, though, I’m not talking about specific sex techniques, but ways of thinking about sex. Converse to the idea that marital sex is to be shackled somehow (no pun intended!!) but equally concerning, is the condoning of *un*healthy sexual practices in marriage in the name of fully embracing marital sexuality.
In other words, I don’t think that a wife owes it to her husband to fulfill his every exploitative fantasy. I suspect that, at the root of teachings such as the Raineys’ lies a pandering to, and an enabling of, unhealthy *male* sexuality. I say this because it always seems to be about the wife doing what her husband wants, with no mention of what *she* may want!
(It’s not only the Raineys I’m talking about, they’re just the only ones I can remember at the moment)
I know I’ve opened a can of worms regarding determination of whether a husband’s (or a wife’s) sexual wish is an exploitative one, but I’m certain that not every sexual wish is healthy, and think this is something that needs to be addressed.
I went back and clarified my comment to say that it is my *opinion* that those things are true.
That’s better.
It’s a pretty strong opinion, so much so that now it would take a lot for me to change it. Because it’s not an unsusbantiated opinion. And, after all I’ve gone through in my personal situation with a pastoral husband abuser, I’ve got a pretty darn good radar for that kind of stuff now. I didn’t used to… I would be glad to provide substatiation later, if needed, when I have time to sit down and hunt for it.
TL, I hear you and am in a similar situation myself, as both a separated woman and a comitted Christian. I try to just stay away from sexual stuff (in movies, etc), in the sense that I am a fully sexual person and so really don’t want my mind to “go there” right now. I agree that it would be SO hard, as a single person, to have to sit through a series on sex. Good good point.
Bonnie,
TOTALLY agreed. Beyond words agreed. I won’t go into personal stories, but I feel sick to my stomach just saying that much. it’s sadly more common than not. And, imo, Driscoll has that same thing going.
A great book to read about men’s unhealthy sexual desires is called “The Centerfold Syndrome” by Gary Brooks.
I feel that many Christian men have been influenced by pornography in their approach to sex. I think this is something the Christian community needs to discuss. A lot of women marry Christian men and then find themselves in a position of being expected to cater to a type of sexuality that is pornographic and exploitative in nature.
Oh, I’m not saying MD has been influenced by pornography, but I do believe some men in the Christian community are very much influenced by it. It is reflected in the demands they make on their wives, and if they are Christian leaders – they way they speak about sexuality.
There is a pornographic element within the Christian community that basically sees wives as sex objects whose sole purpose is fulfill their husbands sexual desires – even if she doesn’t enjoy them or finds them degrading.
The early church seemed to highly esteem virginity. In fact, this seems to be one of the things Paul had to counter with his statements that couples shouldn’t put away their spouses or refuse sexual relations.
Though I do not accept Mary’s perpetual virginity (the Catholic and Orthodox Church do in their theology and in their hymns and teachings, and both Luther and Calvin believed it, too), I don’t totally reject the possibility, though I believe that the normal reading of Matthew 1:25 is that after Jesus was born Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations and Jesus’ brothers and sisters (or some of them) were later children of Joseph and Mary. However, it’s possible that the knowledge of her perpetual virginity was the impetus for the growth of this practice (that, and/or Jesus’ virginity).
Though it doesn’t call her “Ever-Virgin,” the veneration of Mary began rather early in the church, including referring to her as Theotokos (i.e., God-bearer/Mother of God): http://theoblogoumena.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-rylands-papyrus-470.html
I wonder what the early Christians and Paul himself would have thought of Mark Driscoll’s talk and venue for discussing sex and the attitude he wishes to inculcate among Christians? Would they have thought he was making too much of it and making it a greater “good” and/or “need” than necessary?
All of 1 Corinthians 7 has Paul talking about sex.
The end part is:
32I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
What I would like to see talked about from pulpit about sex is the fact that so many Christian men are using pornography. But I don’t think that is going to happen because so many Christian pastors, elders, Bible teachers and other leaders of the Christian community are using porn.
I think this is a much bigger problem than we realize.
JLP,
Porn is a huge problem. It’s on magazines, billboards, internet ads, etc. ….. all in the milder but effective forms. Scantily clad women, women wearing skin conforming clothes, showing cleavage and lots of leg above the knees, women showing bellies, men wearing no shirts all muscled out, men wear skin tight pants, men wearing shorts and no shirt and flexing muscles , and so on – these all appeal to everyone’s hormones. Even women’s mags are too sexual for me these days.
And NOW our churches are discussing what sex techniques women should ’serve’ their husbands with. Nope M.Driscoll goes too far in my opinion. We need to steer away from this and help each other center on Christ and spiritual things more. Let’s do the sexual counseling in married only settings.
I know Driscoll has written against porn, but the method in which he does it is very ineffective. It’s too condemning.
Yes, our male Christian leaders are very much influenced by porn when they talk about sex within marriage. It’s all for the man.
I felt Driscoll’s views on sex were also all for the man, especially when he stated that one verse in sos was about oral sex, and thus wives should do it for their husbands. The verse isn’t about oral sex, and a woman should not be required to do if that is not what she wants.
Porn is driving much of the teaching on sex within the Christian community. Porn is the topic we ought to be discussing in our churches, not sexual techniques.
Bonnie wrote:
In other words, I don’t think that a wife owes it to her husband to fulfill his every exploitative fantasy.
Oh, I agree! But who says that? The question becomes a judgment on what is exploitative vs what is not, which is relative to any given couple. MD speaks very strongly against exploitation, which is the same as abuse. I believe he has said in no uncertain terms that a husband must not force his wife to do things she objects to. The flipside is that he also says that wives need to be more willing to try. That sounds reasonable to me.
—
I think a big contributing factor is that society has told women to view men as nothing but brutish sex fiends, who just want one thing (sound familiar?). It’s on TV, and it’s what we tell teenage and college-age girls in gender studies and liberal sex-ed and sometimes in church! So, wives look at their husbands this way. That’s not fair, and that’s not right. Hopefully, some of the men on this blog can vouch for this.
jlp wrote:
There is a pornographic element within the Christian community that basically sees wives as sex objects whose sole purpose is fulfill their husbands sexual desires
Agreed again, which is exactly the sin element that MD is preaching against. Married men may be using porn, but what about the scores of the unmarried (men and women) who are using porn and destroying their futures? When is it appropriate to address them?
You’d like to see the sin of porn addressed at church; but MD does, and you don’t like that it’s included with preaching about marital intimacy when one directly impacts the other. Plus, you think porn is terrible (and I agree), but you imply that MD is somehow pornographic himself and yet he is also too condemning about it? I am having trouble understanding you here. Please explain.
Oh boy can I tell you that porn is a huge problem with mega churches…especially with staffers. One can only imagine what it must be with the pew sitters. It is the dirty secret no one talks about.
Not too long ago, a friend of mine, went to the elders of a mega church and demanded they fire her husband. I am not kidding. He was addicted to porn and she had tried everything else. He was also in a senior position at that church.
When they checked his computer, they were stunned. So they started checking all the other 700 computers at that church and were completely stunned at all the porn cruising they found by quite a few staffers. But the findings were kept from the pew sitters. And filters were quietly installed. No one else was fired. Not a word was said.
As for asking women to try more things, I just don’t think that’s any of MD’s business. That’s between a husband and a wife. Women shouldn’t be put under pressure from a preacher to try more things sexually. I don’t think that is reasonable.
You know what gets me? Women have twice as many sexual nerve endings as men do. Yet all the focus is on the woman pleasing the man. Maybe for once that should be turned around.
jlp,
You know what gets me? Women have twice as many sexual nerve endings as men do. Yet all the focus is on the woman pleasing the man. Maybe for once that should be turned around.
Agreed, for the third time! That’s three for three on sayings you and Mark Driscoll have in common! Do you realize this?!?????????
jlp wrote:
As for asking women to try more things, I just don’t think that’s any of MD’s business.
Well, sure if it is also none of his business to tell men to please their wives.
Hey, telling men and women to please each other would be a lot better than explicitly expounding on how S.O.S. is about oral sex, and how men really love oral sex, so their wives should get busy and serve them well in doing so. I forget where that was said to quote it exactly, but that is the gist.
And you know what really ‘bends me out of shape’, is that I’m remembering he said that. Great picture.
Now I need to get that picture out of my mind. I could never endure listening to a preacher talk about stuff like that on a Sunday morning.
IIRC, Orthodox Jews are taught that women have greater sexual appetites than men, and Orthodox husbands are thus required to have sex with their wives whenever they request it, and it’s common to have sex every Sabbath night for that reason. I think I read that in THE ISRAELIS by Donna Rosenthal (a great book about the people and cultures of modern Israel), but a friend has my copy so I can’t confirm that.
That’s odd. I think it’s in Joseph Dillow’s Solomon on Sex (my copy is in the attic somewhere, I think) that he explains some verses in the Hebrew as being referrences to oral sex by the man on the woman.
Here is Driscoll:
“Question: I am much hornier than my wife and need sex far more often than she does. She has gotten tired of me keeping her up at night to have sex when she is tired and so we have porno that I can look at and masturbate to when she’s not in the mood. She’s
okay with this and we’re wondering if it’s a sin?
Answer: Yes, it is a sin. You should stop this practice immediately and throw out all of your pornography. You are lusting after women and committing adultery in your mind and your wife is depriving you, which is a sin (1 Cor. 7:3–5).” pg 24 *Thanks to Charis/gem for this quote, found here: http://hupotasso.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/mark-driscoll-and-joel-davisson-praying-for-sexual-gluttons/
Here, Driscoll is taking 1 Cor. 7 completely out of context. He is also saying that a tired spouse’s needs are irrelevent.
Being frank, if the spouse is “too tired” every day of every week of every month, then there is a bigger problem going on and counseling should be sought, including medical. Perhaps there is an underlying issue, hormonal, etc, that can be helped, but before it can be helped, it needs to be discovered.
However, a spouse being tired every so often means that, hey, the spouse is tired, and that spouse should be treated with no less respect than the spouse who is NOT tired. In other words, compromise is a good thing. Whoever-wants-sex-wins is emphatically NOT a good thing.
Sex is not a thing to be taken, and a person who is forced to have sex (and I think that an abusive physical force is hardly any different than guilt-laden spiritual abuse force) is a person who is not being treated with respect. There must be a way for both spouses to be treated with respect, even while having different needs.
I find that conservative Christian literature and teaching, Driscoll being included in that catagory, tends to view women as receptacles when it comes to sexuality, that they are there for the male’s pleasure and if the male should want sex, the female must comply or she is in sin. For one thing, this is a sexist view (I know many women who are much more sexual than their husbands). For another thing, this is just wrong. One spouse’s needs are not higher than the other spouse’s needs.
To put it confusingly (heh), the lower-drived spouse should not put their needs above the higher-drived spouse anymore than the higher-drived spouse should put their needs higher. If there is not a balance sought that respects both parties, then one party will get their way and the other party will feel terribly disrespected, used, or ignored.
What about the advice Driscoll gives a young man struggling with porn addictions? He tells that young man to hurry up and get married!? Words fail me there… IMO, Driscoll’s view of the aquisition of a wife solving a man’s sexual problems is horrific. Now the man’s sexual problems are made more destructive—not just hurting him, but now an entire family.
First, that the aquisition of a wife as a sexual recepticale—that right there is the same mentality that porn provides, very anti-women in and of itself. Secondly, that poor woman gets stuck with a man who’s brain is wired to think of her the same way he thinks of the women in pornography, and it’s going to take a looong time (and a lot of hard work and dedication, so the studies say) for him to slowly rewire those brain pathways and learn to think of women and of sex differently…
…And in the meantime, *she’s* going to have to deal with that. *She’s* going to have to pay a good part (the bulk of it, really) of the destructive price for that. Full disclosure, anyone? Driscoll’s advice is like putting a bandaid over gangrene. It’s destructive, but he’s speaking as if it’s *God’s* advice, making it even more destructive.
On a related note:
From this post,
http://42.blogs.warnock.me.uk/2007/11/more-on-driscol.html
this is a particularly appropriate quote that I TOTALLY TOTALLY agree with:
“First, Mark Driscoll takes a love poem and beautiful descriptions of what this couple in love think of each other and like to do and he turns it into commandments. The lady in Song of Solomon writes poetically about wanting oral sex with her husband. Great. No problem with shouting from the rooftops “The Bible says oral sex is ok”. But Mark Driscoll is not happy with that. Instead he turns it into a command. Instead of giving freedom, such as saying “if you like oral sex then you are fine to have oral sex with your husband/wife”. He gives a command. Ladies you must give your husbands oral sex. He talks of a woman whose husband started coming to church because Mark Driscoll told her she must give her husband oral sex and tell him that it was because the Bible said she should. Aaargghhh!!!
The Bible does not say wives must give their husbands oral sex! It absolutely does not. Making a huge leap from “It is ok to have oral sex if that is what you both want” to “Wives you must give your husbands oral sex, and if your husband is not a Christian consider this your duty to bring him to faith” is obscene.”
The entire post really is a must read.
Again, it’s NOT that he talked about oral sex (and I agree with Eric—the imagery there in the book presents oral sex as something both spouses engage in. Read Dillow. It’s not far-fetched, it’s really not). It’s what Driscoll THEN talks about after that. It’s the abusive way in which he turns it into a spiritual requirement, a barometer for being a good wife, when it is no such thing. It’s the way that he just twisted Scripture into saying something that it didn’t, and putting that requirement on the backs of those who follow him. That’s called spiritual abuse.
What about the advice Driscoll gives a young man struggling with porn addictions? He tells that young man to hurry up and get married!? Words fail me there… IMO, Driscoll’s view of the aquisition of a wife solving a man’s sexual problems is horrific. Now the man’s sexual problems are made more destructive—not just hurting him, but now an entire family.
Is Driscoll basing that on 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 where Paul tells people who can’t exercise self-control to get married?
I like what John Piper said once. If there is a difference between the spouses sex drive, they should try to find a compromise.
I appreciate you trying to find common points with me, Letitia. That’s kind of you.
Here, Driscoll is taking 1 Cor. 7 completely out of context. He is also saying that a tired spouse’s needs are irrelevent.
Molly,
I just reread 1 Cor. 7 right now, and I disagree that MD is taking the Bible out of context. He also did not say that a tired spouse’s needs are irrelevant. There is no context to the answer in relation to the question, being that the question was posed on the church blog with no ability for followup or clarification.
You admit that the wife could be experiencing a nonphysical, nonmedical, non-actually sleep deprived marital problem leading her to refuse to be intimate with her husband. In that case, it is possible that she is not following 1 Cor. 7 in depriving her husband (sex IS good, right?). But the way the question is asked and also from the husband’s pov, there is simply no way to tell.
From listening to MD’s sermons, I think he would agree with most of what you wrote in your last comment (except about the reasons for marriage). How then can you attribute to him viewpoints about direspecting and objectifying women when he has been adamantly opposed to those things by trying to combat porn and urging men to treat their wives well?
At the same time, he is not letting women off the hook for their abuses and misdeeds either. Perhaps the view that women are always the victims is so pervasive that most women don’t see their own sins in this area. So women get indignant when called on it. Maybe, just maybe?
This was written by the host of Church Discipline to show that the marriage-as-a-solution-to-sin is nothing new:
“That being said I read through the thread where everyone was offended by Driscoll’s “if you struggle with porn get married”…. This was written to a woman over 1600 years ago by Saint Jerome with essentially the same theme:
Marriage is the work by which it is possible for a female having lost God’s grace through fornication to regain it, “If you are a true virgin, why do you fear her careful guardianship; and, if you have fallen, why do you not openly marry? Wedlock is like a plank offered to a shipwrecked man and by its means you may remedy what previously you have done amiss.” ”
If you take it the worst possible way, then one could construe marriage-as-a-solution-to-sin as objectifying a woman. However, 1 Cor. 7 says essentially the same thing:
2But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
How about a more charitable way of looking at such advice–that a man (or a woman) who is struggling in sexual sin is really made by God to be married, as in the body and mind need and want to be married. Therefore, the biblical advice is to do the right thing: get thee married and live out the sex life that God intended rather than through sinful alternatives.
Couple that with “husbands, love your wives…” and we should end up with the principle ‘love the woman you married and do right by her (including sexually).’
The added dimension to this was that marriage in NT times was arranged. How’s that for a monkey wrench in our contemporary paradigm?
Okay.
I see things very differently. I think that right now I don’t care enough about it to engage further. I’m glad you found a teacher that you find helpful and encouraging on your journey deeper into Christ. I mean that.
I agree with Molleth’s previous comment that he objectifies women. It is funny how someone can hear the same thing and come away with completely different views. I also felt he completey violated the spirit of 1 Corin 7 in two different talks I heard.
I think part of comes out in his tone and his innate belief that women are more easily deceived than men. That basic belief can cloud everything he believes about women, their intelligence, ability, etc. It is one reason he is so ready to call them gossips, drama queens, etc. And he has even admitted he filters his wife’s e-mails so she will not be subjected to the gossipy women. The things he said about ‘women’s ministries’ in churches was down right insulting to all women everywhere.
It is not just his talk about sex but his view of women that seems to cloud his teaching on this subject.
Eric –
The early church seemed to highly esteem virginity. In fact, this seems to be one of the things Paul had to counter with his statements that couples shouldn’t put away their spouses or refuse sexual relations.
Letitia agreed to be our Acts29 representative on my resent Driscoll thread and then when it closed down mentioned that she thought it was funny that our conversation had been all comp-egal while the conversation here had been mostly about sex.
In terms of virginity and the early church, this is one of my hobby horses as I did a lot of research on spiritual marriage for the defense of patriarchy series. Virginity is a Roman virtue that gets into Christianity very early. Christian fascination with virginity starts out strong but actually grows until the mid 5th century. By the 4th century Christianity has a theology of virginity where there are 3 genders: non virgin men, non virgin women and virgins. Because virginity is seen as such an elevated state the lower state of chastity (not currently engaging in sex) becomes key. The Christian community is definitely divided on whether the sinful nature of sex prevents one from being a priest. They are not divided on whether sex is inherently sinful, and marital sexuality just less-so.
During the early middle ages virginity and chastity goes out of style. This is when you see the move towards celibacy, priests should not marry but are free to have relations of concubinage. Chastity is still an elevated state and comes on par with virginity but not nearly as much of a focus.
In the high middle ages the sort of elevated love view of sex that comps push currently gets fashionable. Though for them “courtly love” it directed at an elevated woman and is literary and poetic…. having little in common with the animalistic breeding one might do with a spouse. In other words: marital sexuality is animalistic (though not sinful), adulterous sexuality (often not completely consummated) is spiritually elevated. This is also the period when “spiritual marriage” takes off, that is remaining chaste while married.
Its against this backdrop that Luther attacks celibacy. For Luther the effect of a celibate priesthood, and chaste monks is to create rampant prostitution tightly coupled with the church. Calvin advances this idea and they both try and create a marital sexuality is healthy and blessed and totally unlike unmarried sexuality.
In the 19th century free love ideas (marry for love not money) become popular in the church and the whole tie of love + sex + marriage is the “Christian view”.
What I’m finding interesting in this conversation is the tone (and I’ll quote jlp here)
I feel that many Christian men have been influenced by pornography in their approach to sex. I think this is something the Christian community needs to discuss. A lot of women marry Christian men and then find themselves in a position of being expected to cater to a type of sexuality that is pornographic and exploitative in nature.
There is an undertone here which is very high middle ages: marital sexuality isn’t elevated enough, its too focused on about sweat and body fluids …. What we need is a more spiritually elevated sex (not exploitive or degrading)…. JLP is being vague here but my guess is that he/she is reversing which specific acts are degrading, but the tone is right on with courtly love.
As prostitution is being replaced by porn as the outlet for “dirty sex” in Christian culture it would be interesting if we end up with a literary view of love and sex like what existed in the high middle ages and free love ideas go out of fashion.
If you’ll note, the 144,000 in Revelation 14:3-4 are Jewish male virgins. The Greek is parthenos (pl. parthenoi), and can be used for either men or women (i.e., the 2nd declension -os ending is used for both, rather than parthenê for a female). IIRC, Dr. Ann Nyland in her THE SOURCE NEW TESTAMENT says that parthenios (i.e., -ios ending) more properly means “virgin” whereas parthenos, though it can mean virgin, can mean unmarried. If so, then that renders moot the frequent back-and-forth debate re: the difference between the Hebrew bethulah and almah and the Septuagint’s use of parthenos in Isaiah 7:14 (and its subsequent quote in Matthew 1:23) to translate almah.
“In that case, it is possible that she is not following 1 Cor. 7 in depriving her husband (sex IS good, right?). But the way the question is asked and also from the husband’s pov, there is simply no way to tell.”
Letitia, I’ve always found it interesting how anyone gets the idea that EACH having authority/power/privilege over the other’s body means that no one can say no. It is not that at this moment one has the privilege but the other doesn’t. It is that both have the privilege at the same time. Thus neither one can take from the other what he/she wants. Both must yield, both must woo. Yet either may refuse. It produces an attitude of respect and honor, and willingness to yield to either please, or yes, or no. You may say come, but if I say go, then nothing happens.
“There is an undertone here which is very high middle ages: marital sexuality isn’t elevated enough, its too focused on about sweat and body fluids …. What we need is a more spiritually elevated sex (not exploitive or degrading)…. JLP is being vague here but my guess is that he/she is reversing which specific acts are degrading, but the tone is right on with courtly love.”
Very interesting information in your comment. Thanks for the info.
I’m not so sure it is specific acts that are degrading (though there are some) it is the demand of service rather than a mutual pleasuring that is degrading to women. Pornography has indeed focused on the physical act alone making it exploitive of the bodies of women. It is not bodies that marry, but the persons who live in those bodies. Yes, sex should be more spiritually elevated since it is between humans who are spiritual.
It would certainly be good for humanity if free love ideas slip away. Love without committment, flitting from flower to flower has done a lot of damage to societies.
I’m not so sure it is specific acts that are degrading (though there are some) it is the demand of service rather than a mutual pleasuring that is degrading to women.
Yes, that’s it. That says it precisely.
Letitia,
“That being said I read through the thread where everyone was offended by Driscoll’s “if you struggle with porn get married”…. This was written to a woman over 1600 years ago by Saint Jerome with essentially the same theme
The issue here is that the man needs healing from the underlying emotional issues driving his porn addiction. Getting married won’t solve that, not when it is an addiction.
If it is just a strong desire to have sex, than marriage is the answer. But when you are talking about addiction, marriage isn’t going to fix it because sexual addiction is not caused by a need for sex. It’s caused by emotional issues.
Sometimes women have married Christian men, only to find out afterwards that their husbands are into porn. And they can make every effort in the world to satisfy every sexual fantasy that he has. But it’s not going to stop the porn addiction because it’s underlying causes are not sexual.
This is where MD is not good on porn, he doesn’t realize the underlying emotional pain that drives porn use.
Letitia,
What I’m saying is that telling wives they must essentially “service” their husbands, even if that’s supposedly covered by coupling this with saying that husbands must not force their wives to do anything they don’t want to do, still puts the pressure on the wife. The pressure to meet needs must be mutual. Does Driscoll tell husbands *how* not to view their wives as porn objects?
I don’t believe that part of the duty of spouses to one another sexually means allowing themselves to be used or enabling their spouse to act out unhealthy sex. It means, don’t deprive one another of a healthy sexual relationship.
You said, society has told women to view men as nothing but brutish sex fiends. Perhaps in some aspects. But what about the girl who has typical, normal hopes & dreams to meet a wonderful man who will love and respect her and ravish *her,* who then gets married and finds out he’s, um, a bit more of a selfish sex fiend than she expected? I’m sure that happens as well.
ack, I’m on my laptop & can’t remember how to login. The italics were supposed to end after “brutish sex fiends”!
I’m not so sure it is specific acts that are degrading (though there are some) it is the demand of service rather than a mutual pleasuring that is degrading to women.
If that is the definition then where would the connection with porn be? Porn sex tends to be very sex positive with both the men and the women having a good time with a focus on mutual pleasuring. Arguably the harder core the porn the more it becomes focused on the man pleasuring the woman. I.E. the shift from softcore to hardcore is the shift from women as sex objects to men as sex objects.
Its hard to think of any entertainment medium which portrays women as existing to sexually pleasure men while being disinterested in their own sexual pleasure. T.V. commercials and magazine ads might be the place you see this imagery the most.
A lot of women watch soft core porn only because their partners get pleasure from it.
And as Christians we shouldn’t be using porn:
Matthew 5:28 (New International Version)
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
It’s not the will of God that men have sexual fantasies about women other than their wives.
Porn is about men having sexual fantasies about women other than their wives (As Christians we refrain from sex outside of marrige).
God has a higher standard for the treatment of women than porn does.
I’m trying to stay focused on the claim of
“demand for service” porn connection claim. That is that porn was causing men to “demand services rather than mutual pleasuring” which was given as the way in which porn sex is degrading.
The
“lust for other women” = “adultery in the heart” … has nothing to do with a service demand.
I’m separating here because I would deny the first claim but not the 2nd.
_____________________
As for A lot of women watch soft core porn only because their partners get pleasure from it.
There is a lot of women, so in terms of gross numbers a lot of women probably do anything for any reason. But if you mean as a percentage, that’s not what the evidence shows. I’d offer a quick piece of counter evidence the erotic fiction category. Erotic fiction (Ellora’s Cave, Loose-Id…) outsells all other classes of e-books combined. The readership is almost entirely female, and mostly married or involved in a serious relationship. Also typically conservative
Porn usage has gotten hard to track since the internet but in the 80’s and 90s the numbers were by every measure well over 40% of adult women used some form of video porn alone at least 2x in a given 6 month period. With the internet availability… OTOH female usage doesn’t approach male usage.
“If that is the definition then where would the connection with porn be? Porn sex tends to be very sex positive with both the men and the women having a good time with a focus on mutual pleasuring.”
It’s all a lie. Porn is not ’sex’ positive. It is fantasy positive. There are no real connections happening, just flesh upon flesh.
Bonnie,
I’m sure if we were discussing any other aspect of a relationship, the response would be entirely different. Suppose the issue were whether the husband should give backrubs to his wife whenever she needs a backrub. After a long day, nothing would please her more than for him to give her a backrub. But he’s not in the mood. He’s too tired; he’s tired every night. He does not want to be used. Oh, the humanity!
There is a definite line between marital duty and abuse. I have heard no one (neither myself nor Mark Driscoll) advocate for the latter. Should the husband not have compassion for his wife to meet her needs? If yes, then why not conversely?
(BTW, the backrub thing is a very real world example that takes place in my home frequently.)
TL and jlp –
Lets step back. You said that porn resulted in degrading sex to women. I asked what the degrading aspect was and you said it was that it didn’t involve mutual pleasuring. This was relevant to the discussion of Driscoll because a claim was made that he was particularly incompetent in dealing with this problem “This is where MD is not good on porn, he doesn’t realize the underlying emotional pain that drives porn use.”
So we have a thesis:
1) There exists an emotional pain which creates a disease caused “sex addiction” that has a symptom called “porn usage”.
2) Discoll doesn’t understand the emotional pain that drives porn usage and thinks it is about sexual desire, hence he is ineffective in addressing porn usage.
3) Porn usage discourages mutual pleasure in sex acts and causes men to focus on their own pleasure when having sex.
4) Non mutually pleasurable sex is degrading and damages the marriage.
As far as I can tell that’s the structure of the argument. I decided to focus on (3) in the chain because that one is new to me. So I asked how does porn (which tends to focus on mutual pleasuring) decrease mutual pleasuring and you both gave completely non sequiturs.
jlp that it causes lust for other women which is a sin.
Agreed but irrelevant to mutual pleasuring.
TL that porn is focused on body to body sex and fantasy which strikes me as true of all TV and Movies. The doctors on ER aren’t really saving people’s lives.
So again irrelevant to mutual pleasuring.
So before we go off on 500 reasons that porn sucks, I’d like to go back to #3. Do you have any evidence or even a reasonable explanation for #3? In other words why would repeated exposure to visuals of men engages in acts heavily focused on female orgasm decrease their frequency of inducing orgasm in their partners?
I’m sure it is because I’m slow but I’m just not seeing the connection.
TL — I also want to break off “spiritually fulfilling” from physically fulfilling (orgasm). This seems to be specific to your case and not to JLP.
Your critique is right on, if you reject free love (classic meaning, marriage, love and sex are connected) then you are rejecting Driscoll’s whole philosophy of marriage. I’ve never heard anyone from the complementarian camp actually say we should reject freelove and go back to middle ages institutions like spiritual marriage, courtly love…. Is this unique to you or are there others?
I should say that in terms of elevated sexuality you are absolutely right regarding most porn. It is purely physical and converts sex to its most animalistic: all about friction on body parts. So I get where you are going which is why I want to break this off, because I see this as an entirely different but much more fundamental disagreement.
“Your critique is right on, if you reject free love (classic meaning, marriage, love and sex are connected) then you are rejecting Driscoll’s whole philosophy of marriage. I’ve never heard anyone from the complementarian camp actually say we should reject freelove and go back to middle ages institutions like spiritual marriage, courtly love…. Is this unique to you or are there others?”
Perhaps, I’m not understanding what you mean by ‘free love’. I’m from the hippy generation. “Free Love” meant flitting from flower to flower, having uncommitted sex at will, very much like what porn epitomizes today.
CD-Host:
Ooo, Ooo, me! I’ll talk about it!!!
3) Porn usage discourages mutual pleasure in sex acts and causes men to focus on their own pleasure when having sex.
“In other words why would repeated exposure to visuals of men engages in acts heavily focused on female orgasm decrease their frequency of inducing orgasm in their partners? ”
Porn is not real. It is fantasy. Men are excited by the thought of their partner’s orgasm. They can be much less excited by the reality of the acts that will actually result in said orgasm. I mean, they saw it in a movie – doesn’t it really work that way?
More pressure on woman. Look like porn stars, act like porn stars. It’s not real. Honest. It’s not.
I’m trying to stay away, but…it’s hard.
CD
Your position, or, at least, what I’m hearing you say your position is (and please correct me where I’m hearing you wrong) on porn really confuses me.
Hasn’t it been proven that repetative use of porn causes the brain to form pathways that equate sexual pleasure with personality-less/faceless partners who simply exist to gratify the other person’s sexual needs?
Part of the brain pathway formation (and obviously I’m killing whatever technical terms there are for this, so someone feel free to step in and get it right-ha) is that the object that meets the needs is stripped of her essential humanity and is, instead, a receptacle and ego-booster. This seems like a very serious issue, certainly not one that is healthy for a person married to a *real* woman. *wince*
If this is true, that actual brain pathways are being formed (that are very difficult to reform), then it is difficult for me to see how porn could be a part of a healthy marriage. You said in a different thread that whether or not a husband uses porn is none of the wife’s business. This seems like it is her business—big time.
This doesn’t even begin to go into porn’s relationship to sexual immorality. I struggle to see how watching other people have sex and/or fantasizing about having sex with them can somehow be a part of growing in the fruits of the Spirit.
Human sexuality is awesome stuff, but the Scripture is pretty clear that there are perameters put on it. I am honestly confused to hear you seemingly speaking out in support of pornography. I’d love to hear why, if you have the time.
PS.
Did a quick google search:
Porn Re-Wires Teen Brains:
http://sexual-sanity.com/?p=17
Porn Produces Not-So-Good Brain Response
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jul/14/farout
This is Your Brain on Porn
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/345
Christ Himself said men shouldn’t have sexual fantasies about women other than their wives. When Christ says something, I know it’s will.
CD-Host – are you a Christian?
CD-Host,
What I should have asked you instead of if you are a Christian is this:
Do you love Christ? Because you are talking about porn in a religious environment like this you start with the person of Christ. What does Christ want our sex lives to be like? One thing I can tell for sure is that Christ doesn’t want men lusting for other women than their wives. The heart of porn is built on men lusting for women other than their wives.
In an non-religious environment you can start out talking about porn from many different angles. But in a religious one, it all starts with your feelings about Christ.
Hi molleth –
Your position, or, at least, what I’m hearing you say your position is (and please correct me where I’m hearing you wrong) on porn really confuses me.
When has my position on most things not confused you?
Hasn’t it been proven that repetative use of porn causes the brain to form pathways that equate sexual pleasure with personality-less/faceless partners who simply exist to gratify the other person’s sexual needs?
Nope. There has not been a single study that has shown any continuing long term effect of porn usage on sexual behavior at all. Not one. Study after study has shown the exact opposite. This has frustrated both sides of the debate. The pro-porn people expected more liberal attitudes, more comfort with public nudity, more support for woman’s equality. The anti-porn people expected: depression, sexual dysfunction, antagonistic and demeaning attitudes towards women, sexual compulsion, more paraphilias…. Both in study after study after study have been disappointed.
It is like a tattoo but more like a water soluble vitamin your body takes what it wants and flushes the rest.
Part of the brain pathway formation (and obviously I’m killing whatever technical terms there are for this, so someone feel free to step in and get it right-ha) is that the object that meets the needs is stripped of her essential humanity and is, instead, a receptacle and ego-booster. This seems like a very serious issue, certainly not one that is healthy for a person married to a *real* woman. *wince*
I would agree if your premise was true then it would be remarkably destructive.
If this is true, that actual brain pathways are being formed (that are very difficult to reform),
I want you to stop for a second. Imagine for a moment this were true. That is what you are proposing is that watching a movie could fundamentally alter deeply held and key parts of your personality like sexual identity. Wow would psychology be easy if showing movies was all it took to get these kinds of effects.
If say 100 hours or even 1000 hours of exposure to pornography could change your sexual identity and way of relating to women, then how long would it take to say remap the brain to make someone want to speed. 5 minutes, 10 minutes. How long to make them not want to smoke?
Toss people into a total institution isolated from friends and family. Control every aspect of their waking lives, torture them, sleep deprive use sensory deprivation, group social pressure, one on one counseling them full on Korean war style brainwashing. This works only some of the time and in almost all cases wears off after about 6 months.
Since this is about the 20th time in the last 3 years the porn addiction topic has come up I started writing a long post.
then it is difficult for me to see how porn could be a part of a healthy marriage. You said in a different thread that whether or not a husband uses porn is none of the wife’s business. This seems like it is her business—big time.
I said that to a woman who was struggling with control issues. My point to her was she wants him to stop controlling her she needs to stop controlling him. By asserting she has the right to control what he thinks she implicitly granting him permission to control what she thinks.
In most cases I leave it up to the couple. I will say that Christian women are mostly crazy on this issue, and Christian men are liars on this issue. Take a couple that marries in their early 20s. The guy is going to having between 500 and a 1000 orgasms per year for the next decade. Of those roughly 7500 orgasms how many does she honestly want to be in the room for? Remember she’s having periods, having a variety of colds, possibly a few kids. My guess is 2500 tops. So what do you think is going on for the other 5000?
Given the alternatives she should be thrilled if porn is sucking up most of the 5000.
Human sexuality is awesome stuff, but the Scripture is pretty clear that there are perameters put on it. I am honestly confused to hear you seemingly speaking out in support of pornography. I’d love to hear why, if you have the time.
Mainly coincidence for some reason porn is coming up in 2 different places and you and I happen to both be there. Chance. I’m not on a pro-porn crusade or anything.
CD-Host,
Do you love Christ? That’s where this discussion has to start from on a religious site like this.
CD_Host,
What do say about:
Matthew 5:28 (New International Version)
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Letitia,
I said that “the pressure to meet *needs* must be mutual.” I’m trying to make a distinction between true, God-given needs and desires, and corrupted desires — lusts, basically. Being married obviously does not make illicit lust magically disappear. Especially for those who have developed their sexuality along the lines of self-focused masturbatory thought and behavior. I’m asking whether Driscoll & others make this distinction.
If the husband in your backrub scenario really is exhausted (not all the time, but sometimes) then the wife can surely wait for another opportunity. If he’s exhausted all the time, then there’s something more than backrubs going on which must be addressed. (Besides, a backrub’s a bit more laid-back than sex…)
The whole discussion to me boils down to grace, and mercy, and love. If those elements aren’t present, or present in large doses, in a marriage, there’s gonna be sexual trouble, guaranteed. What good, loving wife doesn’t truly want to mesh with her husband sexually? And vice-versa?
I don’t think the discussion is merely about married couples embracing their sexuality, although it is partially, and I agree that they should. It goes further than that, too far, imo. A marriage doesn’t exist just to service people sexually, or make an idol of sex. Sex is for the marriage, including the production of children.
When Paul says it’s better to marry than to burn, that means that a person should not *avoid* marriage, because marriage is where sex happens; marriage is what sex is for. But rushing into a marriage just to have sex is not a good idea either. (I’m sure there are many who can vouch for that.)
One more thing & then I’m done
(no computer access for awhile) I think that it’s a must that sex be discussed, but there’s a way to do it and a way not to. There is a way that respects privacy, that respects the sanctity of married sexuality, that respects boundaries. Then there is a way that cheapens it and gives TMI. I’m calling for the former. I’m calling for the exercise of good taste!
Take a couple that marries in their early 20s. The guy is going to having between 500 and a 1000 orgasms per year for the next decade.
I guess I missed that decade (even though I married in my early 20s).
Wow, this thread sure has taken an unexpected turn…!
CD,
You are contending that porn usage is not harmful? I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “porn creep,” where, over time, the individual requires more graphic and intense images in order to get sexual satisfaction and leaves him (usually him) unable to have normal relations with the opposite sex.
It is because porn is sexual sin that MD preaches so much against it. Someone earlier had mentioned his e-book, Porn Again Christian. It’s a shocking title for sure, and it is equally shocking to read him giving men the smackdown for being perverts and abusers–yes, according to Driscoll that is what a man is when he uses porn. I say it’s about time someone brought the conviction of God down on the Christian men who are guilty of it.
To address your calculations, the conservative estimate given of 500 is equal to 9.6 times per week. A little high, don’t you think?
jlp –
I answered the Matt 5:28 the first time you brought it up.
CD: decrease mutual pleasuring and you both [this was a reply to you and TL] gave completely non sequiturs.
jlp that it causes lust for other women which is a sin.
Agreed but irrelevant to mutual pleasuring.
As for my beliefs I generally stay away from those topics. Your claim that I asked about was about psychology, cause and effect not morality. Nothing I’ll say to you in this thread is outside the theology of Protestant evangelical reformed leading Christianity.
But if you want my belief about the passage, it won’t help but here goes. If you go to Luke 6 you’ll notice this passage is missing, in fact the whole section is. This material is original to “Matthew”. The comments about lust vs. adultery is one of many examples of “Christ’s” presentation of a new decalogue. That is don’t follow the decalogue literally (as per the Jerusalem faction) nor reject it as per the Pauline schools but go beyond symbolically and ethically. This is the core principle of 2nd century Christianity in Antioch. Moreover this really 2nd century because it is almost directly responding to ideas coming from the Pauline school, Asia minor in the 2nd century so it isn’t authentic to any first century author, i.e. not from Peter much less from Jesus (in the sense you mean).
For most of what I write it makes no difference what I believe. Your ideas conflict with my values in all kinds of ways, but who cares? The interesting question is whether your ideas conflict with your own values, not with mine. So on complegal lets assume that Jesus said, and Matthew wrote it down, and not worry about what I believe.
Letitia,
It is because porn is sexual sin that MD preaches so much against it. Someone earlier had mentioned his e-book, Porn Again Christian. It’s a shocking title for sure, and it is equally shocking to read him giving men the smackdown for being perverts and abusers–yes, according to Driscoll that is what a man is when he uses porn. I say it’s about time someone brought the conviction of God down on the Christian men who are guilty of it.
Amen to that!
CD Host,
In most cases I leave it up to the couple. I will say that Christian women are mostly crazy on this issue, and Christian men are liars on this issue. Take a couple that marries in their early 20s. The guy is going to having between 500 and a 1000 orgasms per year for the next decade. Of those roughly 7500 orgasms how many does she honestly want to be in the room for? Remember she’s having periods, having a variety of colds, possibly a few kids. My guess is 2500 tops. So what do you think is going on for the other 5000?
Given the alternatives she should be thrilled if porn is sucking up most of the 5000.
WHOA! I can’t believe I just read that from a person who calls himself a Christian.
In my Bible it says that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
It also says that men who look at women lustfully have committed adultery with them in their hearts.
It sounds like there is a solution to those other 5000 orgasms: know sin is sin, and get thee the fruits of the Spirit, which are given freely.
I KNOW how porn can separate a couple. I KNOW, first hand, that using porn or some other way to stimulate one’s brain to achieve sexual pleasure (other than being with one’s husband or wife, FULLY) creates a vicious circle that is very hard to break.
If one spouse needs to fantasize in order to reach orgasm, they are committing adultery in their heart, while using their spouse’s body to get them there. Hardly Christian love. Hardly a vehicle to oneness. Hardly an expression of an one-flesh union.
I liked Driscoll’s Peasant Princess series, but agree with others who have said the exegesis was poor. He definitely used SOS as a springboard to what he wanted to say, so he made the Bible say what he wanted it to say.
That aside, I thought his messages were good, but then, I didn’t listen to them at church. I don’t think I’d play those messages to a church because they aren’t sermon material, they are teaching/counselling material, to the apropriate audience: married or engaged couples. (And I’d leave some of the more graphic stuff out when addressing engaged couples. There’s no need to awaken passion too early!)
In defense of Driscoll, he said something that every Christian counsellor should always tell a couple when they come with sexual problems: Sexual problems begin outside of the bedroom. If you want to solve them, you need to find out what is going on outside of the bedroom, address it, and then you can work on the sexual union.
IOW, he is implying that sex is a natural ingredient in a functional, happy marriage. He stressed the importance of communication, love, respect, honor, etc… Sex was supposed to be the main topic, but I walked away having heard a lot more about relationship than sex!
Letitia,
I do wish MD would talk to committed Christian counselors who counsel porn addicted people. I think his presentation of the problem would be so much more helpful to people if he did.
In fact I wish he would discuss a lot of his beliefs with committed Christian counselors, it would give him a lot of insight to go on when he teaches others.
Letitia,
To address your calculations, the conservative estimate given of 500 is equal to 9.6 times per week. A little high, don’t you think?
I don’t think it is high for a sexually addicted man, it’s high for a man who isn’t sexually addicted.
Letitia —
Wow, this thread sure has taken an unexpected turn…!
It wasn’t my intent. I was trying to content with one specific harm. that was claimed. I just couldn’t get an answer. I don’t want to work though the whole list of 500 bad things about porn.
You are contending that porn usage is not harmful?
I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “porn creep,” where, over time, the individual requires more graphic and intense images in order to get sexual satisfaction and leaves him (usually him) unable to have normal relations with the opposite sex.
Yes, I have heard of that term and that idea. And there is no evidence that it exists as a real disease. There is 0 evidence of porn usage leading to sexual disfunction, every time this gets studied. As far as more graphic and intense images, nope. Otherwise you would expect porn to be rapidly becoming much harder core. The most popular porn companies do soft core. Extreme stuff remains fringe.
People respond to porn the same way they do to any other class of entertainment. Most people have seen kid style entertainment documentaries that like you would see on animal planet. Some people really like those and move onto the harder stuff on the history channel or discovery channel and if they get really out of hand they start reading books by the people in those documentaries intended for a general audience. At this point the kid level documentaries are completely unsatisfying.
In children this cycle can lead to them becoming scientists or historians, and in adults can lead to adults taking community college courses or rigorous self education. If we had an ideology that Genesis 2:17 should be applied liberally then there would be Christian anti-documentary sites by those book buyers about having suffered the long term effects, how animal planet and PBS are gateways trapping hundreds of thousands each year into this cycle of destruction. And there would be debates about which preachers were addressing this in the most biblical way.
Like I said it is time to do a thread on this on my blog about where these ideas came from. I’m kind of shocked that what I’m saying is seen as so out of the norm. I’m only 39 and I remember the 1986, 1994 and 2004 debates on this. Many of the people here are older I would have assumed they’ve heard this more.
It is because porn is sexual sin that MD preaches so much against it.
I’m trying to stick to harmful and avoid the issue of whether it is a sin or not. It could be sinful and harmless like mixing different types of cloth in the clothing you wear, or extremely sinful and harmless like praying to an idol. I don’t see the two as synonyms.
To address your calculations, the conservative estimate given of 500 is equal to 9.6 times per week. A little high, don’t you think?
Nope. If your husband is out of his 20s ask him. But lets assume I was 100% too high, I doubled the number. Then the range is 2500-5000. Which means that for the average guy there are an additional 1250 during the course of the decade…
CD-Host,
As a Christian, I have turned away every chance to have sex outside of God’s perimeters. It has extremely hard, but I am glad I did it. My life is better for it. I have no regrets about it.
In light of that I don’t feel the sexuality you are saying is acceptable is either good or healthy. And most of all, I don’t believe it is God’s will.
Madame –
WHOA! I can’t believe I just read that from a person who calls himself a Christian.
In my Bible it says that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
It also says that men who look at women lustfully have committed adultery with them in their hearts.
It sounds like there is a solution to those other 5000 orgasms: know sin is sin, and get thee the fruits of the Spirit, which are given freely.
Excellent suggestion! A testable hypothesis for an alternate method of control. And what is great about it is that we have certain types of behaviors that will verify the spirit’s effectiveness and/or interest. For example:
1) In 19th century prisons where masturbation was prohibited and thus tracked we would expect to see a much lower incidence of violations among Christian men than their non Christian counterparts.
2) We would expect sexually alluring advertisement to have less impact on Christian men than their secular counterparts. There eyes would not be drawn to the female model in the same way and their brains would not make the same positive association between the model and the product.
3) We would expect Christian men to demonstrate a much lower level of brain stimulation when confronted with sexual imagery.
4) We would expect to see much lower levels of porn usage among divorced or widowed Christian men than similarly aged secular counterparts.
5) If you are a paedo-baptist then studies of masturbation involving Christian teens would show much lower levels than among secular teens.
etc… You get the idea. Go ahead and check the research.
This is great because you can prove me wrong easily. My contention is that theology in the absence of strong social pressure has essentially no impact on sexual behavior.
”There is 0 evidence of porn usage leading to sexual disfunction, every time this gets studied.”
Depends upon what one means by sexual dysfunction. I would say that some things considered sexual dysfunctions would be: adultery, requesting wives to do ‘things’ seen in porno, excessive masterbation (what is excessive), excessive sex (every day is excessive, otherwise excessive is what is more than the wife can handle), requesting things like anal sex which are medically harmful, etc.
Porn destroys relationships. Ask the women. Porn is not entertainment. It is sinful behavior. It involves being a peeping tom. It involves watching other couples sin because sex outside of marriage is sin. It is mentally and emotionally destructive. It is not harmless.
”We would expect sexually alluring advertisement to have less impact on Christian men than their secular counterparts.”
Not so. Anyone can be drawn toward sinful behavior if they enmesh their senses with it. This is why Scriptures tell us to surround ourselves with godly thoughts, and God honoring behavior. It is enough that we live in a sinful world that has very little concept of God and good and holy. But we don’t have to enmesh ourselves. We can turn our eyes away from the world’s nakedness. We can look people in the eyes instead of wandering over their bodies. And we can not watch alluring movies, advertisements, etc.
CD, if you have come here to argue the benefits of porn, you really have come to the wrong place. It’s not going to fly.
CD, if you have come here to argue the benefits [and/or the harmlessness - EricW] of porn, you really have come to the wrong place. It’s not going to fly.
Amen.
Good we are at the ad-homonym stage. After all it would be entirely impossible that someone could believe that any random bad statement about something you mostly don’t like should be approved of.
My position is simple. My God is a god who embraces truth. He does approve of deliberate mistranslation in bibles. He does not approve of deliberately falsified history. He does not approve of deliberately falsified mathematics, And he does not approve of deliberately falsified sociology.
To this day the church has not lived down the black mark from lying about astronomy at the end of the middle ages. To this day the book burnings of the 5th century have called into question the processes of canonization. Lies by God’s people to accomplish God’s ends have done far more harm to the church than the sins they were originally meant to address.
For me, God stands for truth and Satan is the father of lies. All lies are satanic. Lying for a righteous cause aids Satan’s cause not Gods. God is not honored by his people making stuff up.
Since you and JLP and EricW have decided to question my salvation, lets turn this around. Is the blood you are washed that of truth or that of lies? Is your God the author of lies or the author of truth.
And if for both of us he is the author of truth, can we cut the ad-homonym attacks out about who is holier and stick to the topic. summary of the question at hand.
And here’s a book review of The Centerfold Syndrome JLP mentioned earlier.
“This is a truly important book. Turning conventional psychological wisdom on its head, these authors reveal that what we have long considered ‘normal’ male sexuality is, actually, a collage of pathologies — objectifying, nonrelational, aggressive.” —Michael Kimmel Professor of Sociology
Perhaps the source of disagreement is on what is accepted as healthy and normal or perhaps even godly.
Perhaps our porn soaked culture is so much an influence on you CD that what you consider normal and healthy really isn’t.
Perhaps what is considered normal male sexuality IS a collage of pathologies but you don’t know it because it is all you know.
Perhaps you are like Isaiah. A man of unclean lips who lived among a people with unclean lips but wouldn’t know it until you had a stout dose of the holiness of God? (Isaiah 6)
BTW we all live among a people with unclean lips and I would suspect that we would all find ourselves in this situation in the presence of our Holy God. This is not a slam against you personally, but an observation of the possibility that your perspective may not be as godly as you think. In that, we all have bad perspectives on many different things.
And I’m pretty sure Isaiah was considered a very godly, holy man before his Holiness of God experience, so as I say this I am careful to make sure you know I don’t think you are particularly ungodly. Just that maybe you are missing it on this one point.
Here is an excert from the centerfold syndrome that I can’t open. But others tell me it’s pretty good and have posted excerpts elsewhere for me to read.
http://www.chipspage.com/3123/centerfold.pdf
CD-Host wrote: Since you and JLP and EricW have decided to question my salvation, lets turn this around. Is the blood you are washed that of truth or that of lies? Is your God the author of lies or the author of truth.
Where and when did I question your salvation? I looked at all my posts in this thread and cannot see where I did that. What ad hominem(s) did I direct at you?
JLP may have questioned your salvation, by asking if you are a Christian. No one else has. And even then it is a reasonable question.
One of the problems I am having with your posts is that you seem to think that viewing other people naked, and fornicating, or doing other sexual things is acceptable behavior. Am I correct? Do you view that as acceptable behavior?
CD Host,
If I understand you right, you are equating self-control to control of one’s natural reactions.
Or maybe you just mean that practicing self-control would lead to one’s natural reactions changing over time.
1) In 19th century prisons where masturbation was prohibited and thus tracked we would expect to see a much lower incidence of violations among Christian men than their non Christian counterparts.
I would expect it because Christian men would know that it doesn’t please God, and would seek to focus on whatever is pure, noble, etc… I agree.
2) We would expect sexually alluring advertisement to have less impact on Christian men than their secular counterparts. There eyes would not be drawn to the female model in the same way and their brains would not make the same positive association between the model and the product.
I don’t think a man can control his initial reaction to craftily presented sex. It’s just a fact that men are visually stimulated, so if they are bombarded with alluring advertising, they are going to respond as expected. But a Christian man who has allowed/is allowing his mind to be renewed, and is seeing this advertising with the mind of Christ, will see something different.
To those still struggling, self-control would help them not dwell on what they have seen.
3) We would expect Christian men to demonstrate a much lower level of brain stimulation when confronted with sexual imagery.
Same as #2
4) We would expect to see much lower levels of porn usage among divorced or widowed Christian men than similarly aged secular counterparts.
This one compares to #1. The use of porn is not God glorifying, it’s committing adultery or fornication in one’s heart, so it’s sin. Period. That alone SHOULD put Christian men and women off using it, and if they still struggle, self-control in this area should be a priority.
5) If you are a paedo-baptist then studies of masturbation involving Christian teens would show much lower levels than among secular teens.
I don’t know what a paedo-baptist is, excuse my ignorance.
I think some parents and youth leaders make a huge mistake when they don’t clearly explain to the teens in their care how addictive and destructive masturbation can be, and how it’s not part of God’s design.
My contention is that theology in the absence of strong social pressure has essentially no impact on sexual behavior.
Being a Christian is not about Theology, it’s about knowing God and what pleases Him, and walking in His ways.
We ought to be able to live among fornicating, adulterous, sexually deviated people and still stay pure, and we live in a society that is becoming, if it isn’t already, anything but Godly in what pertains sexuality.
Porn is not right just because it’s normal. Normal doesn’t equate right.
When you talk about men using porn instead of their wives, you are basically saying that men use their wives to release their urge. Do you realize that? Is that what God created sex for?
The times you gave for a man to use porn, like after childbirth or during his wife’s illness, is that not the time to show love and respect, rather than go fetch the pile of filthy mags or go surf the net?
I find myself shaking my head and asking, like Michael Pearl, where have the real men gone?
1) I believe Mark Driscoll met his wife at age 17 and they got married right after college (4-5 years). Does MD ever discuss how he and his wife handled sexual issuses from age 17 until they got married? Why not?
2) MD offers the standard Christian answer to sexual issues – get yourself a sweetheat at a young age (17 for MD) get married and have alot (5 for MD and his wife) of children. This model doesn’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) work for everyone. MD doesn’t have any other answers than, “take a cold shower.”
3) MD doesn’t have any answers for those who want marriage but do not want children.
JLP may have questioned your salvation, by asking if you are a Christian. No one else has. And even then it is a reasonable question.
One of the problems I am having with your posts is that you seem to think that viewing other people naked, and fornicating, or doing other sexual things is acceptable behavior. Am I correct? Do you view that as acceptable behavior?
That is the very basis of an ad-homonym attack. Whether I do or do not consider something acceptable (sinful) has no influence on whether it does or does not cause various effects? For example you claimed porn causes adultery. Are there 150k porn related adulteries if I believe it warrants immediate excommunication, 250k if I believe it warrants psychological treatment and 500k if I believe it simply requires prayer and 2m if I believe it is not sinful at all? Or does it run the opposite direction with decreasing numbers depending on what I believe. What does one have to do with the other?
If Christians go around saying porn causes adultery and the evidence shows the opposite that discredit the gospel. In the very same way that when Copernicus said the earth orbited the Sun and the Christian community said it didn’t we had millions who believed the bible had been disproven.
Now in terms of personal belief, I think it is much much more complicated than you are making it out to be. For example if viewing pictures of fornication is sinful then Jesus most likely sinned. The bath houses in Caesarea Maritima used pornographic cartoons to mark where people kept their clothing, since lots of the patrons couldn’t read, but they would remember these rather extreme images. Caesarea Maritima would have been the port city a Galilean carpenter would have gone to quite frequently for major supplies/sales, and he would likely have bathed. I’m not willing to give up key doctrine like imparted righteousness which the bible speaks of over and over over something that is simply fashionable like “seeing pictures of fornicating people is sinful”. Nor do I believe I am unsaved for considering Heb 7:26 to supersede Christian fashion.
And I do about 50 of those. I think these questions are very difficult and need to be cut very thin. On the other hand adultery is unquestionably a sin. So if porn led to adultery then we are getting somewhere in identifying the underlying sin. But if I ask for any evidence I get speeches about holiness and a list of another 3 or 4 harms. What I don’t get is something like:
Ideal — “in 1993 the XYZ research institute conducted a study of adulterous behavior. They exposed 1000 men to 12 hours of pornography, and 1000 men to 12 hours of disney films. The 1000 men exposed to pornography committed an average of 0.017 adulterous acts over the next month while the control group committed 0.003 acts…. In 1996 DEF institute repeated the test varying … and arrived at similar results”
Good — “Pornography changes people’s attitudes towards adultery as was shown in the 1993 study by XYZ…. DEF institute has shown that a more positive attitude towards adultery leads to an increase in its frequency so it is reasonable to conclude…”
Fair — A description of a mechanism by which pornography leads to adultery.
Completely worthless — Some guy saying he thinks porn causes adultery.
Insulting and worthless — “How can you not believe porn causes adultery. Don’t you know that porn usage causes watermelons to grow more slowly”
FYI, CD-Host – The term is “ad hominem,” not “ad homonym.”
And … you still haven’t answered my questions re: your accusation that I questioned your salvation.
CD-Host,
You aren’t going to change our mind about pornography.
Since you are all just falling over yourselves with curiosity over the Centerfold Syndrome, I’ll cut a paste a few excepts for you just like someone did for me.
Why?
Because I also thing 500 to 1000 big Os form men, even in their twenties is pretty steep. It is either exaggerated, God purposefully made men to be obsessed with sex (which I doubt), or the need/desire is really for something else. But since that something else is denied men in our culture, their only release in this are is sexual. Hence the more than once a day drive to release emotional/sexual energy.
“The traditional concept of manhood is an elusive state to achieve. Most men have only a vague notion of their masculinity and, therefore, continually worry about whether they measure up, and they are quick to become alarmed at the first sign of failure, weakness or vulnerability. They are programmed to crave validation of their masculinity, and they frequently view women’s bodies as a medium for that validation. This need for validation disempowers them and creates an odd yet vitally important inversion of the traditional power relationship between women and men. Despite the fact that they generally have had considerable advantages over women in physical strength and economic and political opportunities, men have frequently felt one-down about sexuality. Although there are multiple ways that women could conceivably validate a man’s masculinity, the avenue critical to most men is the sexual one. When women are envisioned as sexual objects and made the centerpiece of men’s visual world, they become imbued with enormous psychosocial power. They are seen as having invaluable manhood tokens that they may or may not choose to dispense. The more physically attractive a woman is, the more validating power she is seen to have.” endquote.
And
“The power imparted by women’s sexual leverage, when viewed in terms of women’s relative powerlessness in other spheres, sets the stage for a miserable misunderstanding between women and men. Women, of course, are keenly aware of men’s economic and political leverage, but frequently unaware of the degree tow which men feel powerless in terms of sexuality. Men, aware of their insecurities about sexuality, are.. fearful of women gaining power in areas once thought to be the measure of men’s security and worth.” Endquote.
And here’s a summary provided on another site by wordgazer. (Thank you Wordgazer)
“The author, Gary Brooks, then goes on to describe how young boys (no doubt, in a general sense- but, probably not true of each and every individual young boy in the world)… anyways, how young boys are encouraged to suppress their needs for physical comfort and to feel shame over feelings of weakness or vulnerability. But men still crave physical and emotional comfort… At the same time, boys are encouraged to be sexually promiscuous, to view girls as ‘trophies’ that evidence their sexual prowess- and therein, affirm their masculinity.
So many men pursue sex as a means of getting physical comfort and closeness, but divorce it from emotional intimacy. Sex becomes a substitute for emotional intimacy and comfort.
Women, meanwhile, are encouraged to “attract men’s attention, yet to withhold and serve as gatekeepers of sexual activity.”
The ‘Centerfold,’ according to Brooks, makes this whole dynamic worse. Brooks says that the centerfold takes men’s urge to look at women and turns it into objectification. The woman’s body is on display– but it isn’t a natural body. It’s a glossy, photoshopped, visually stimulating ideal that is devoid of any personality or individuality. And it is utterly unattainable- and thoroughly emotionally distant.
So the man is put in the position of being a constant observer– frustrated and denied, while at the same time, titillated. He begins to relate to the woman’s body parts, rather than the woman herself.. “I’m an ass man,” or “I’m a leg man.” etc.
And eventually- the novelty wears off and it becomes boring, so he has to seek out more kinky and novel images…
And this can interfere with a man’s ability to form a bond with a real woman- who will consistently fall short of the visual ideal that he can’t have.
MEANWHILE… back at the farm:
The young man still has a need for intimacy and closeness, yet is denied this by his culture. He comes to “associate women’s bodies with softness, intimacy and sensuality- the very concepts [he has] been taught to reject.” Ergo, “in adolescence, young men find themselves besieged by two powerful, yet contradictory forces– waves of sexual urgency, and extreme inhibitions against emotional intimacy.”
They fear being controlled by women. They fear being intimate and vulnerable- and thereby losing their masculinity. So they retreat into fantasy and emotional distance- and replace closeness with sex. And… look at centerfolds. Which allow them their emotional distance and visual stimulation- but deny them the ability to be close to the object of their desire- and the glossy unattainable image both relegates women to the position of object and affirms the woman’s ability to deny the man validation. So both men and women end up disempowered in the end.” endquote.
So perhaps pornography is not about sex as much as it is about the emotions men are taught to surpress and the power struggle between the sexes caused by the fall.
CD, you made no mention of my last post. Are you even paying attention. Or are you too busy pointing out how much the people here are like the persecutors of galileo and capernicus (sp?).
Correction.
Paragraph three line one should read:
Because I also think 500 to 1000 big Os for men, even in their twenties is pretty steep.
And the second to last sentence in the third paragraph should read:
But since that something else is denied men in our culture, their only release in this area is sexual.
sorry for the typos.
“Whether I do or do not consider something acceptable (sinful) has no influence on whether it does or does not cause various effects?”
If I’m understanding this statement correctly, you are implying that sin may or may not cause negative (our assertions to which you are disagreeing) effects.
So my question to you is….
1. do you believe pornography to be sinful
2. do you believe pornography causes negative effects in ones life.
3. do you believe one can sin and not suffer negatively in any way from it.
Madame –
Excellent answers. Thank you for responding directly!
If I understand you right, you are equating self-control to control of one’s natural reactions.
Yes. But it seems you aren’t from your answer to #2. That’s fine. I’ll work with however you want to define self-control. This is your hypothesis.
CD: 1) In 19th century prisons where masturbation was prohibited and thus tracked we would expect to see a much lower incidence of violations among Christian men than their non Christian counterparts.
Madam: I would expect it because Christian men would know that it doesn’t please God, and would seek to focus on whatever is pure, noble, etc… I agree.
Great. OK well I can go into details but the history of Eastern State Penitentiary (one of the most famous prisons of all time) shows the opposite. There were no discoverable differences based on denomination or degree of religiosity. Quakers, congregationalists, catholics, animists, jews… all showed the same masturbatory behavior. Moreover, time spent in prayer increased the frequency of masturbation not decreased it.
Long stints in solitary confinement and threats of beatings did nothing to control their masturbation problem (which if you want to do a search look under “self abuse”). The only things that seemed to decrease the rate of masturbation were malnutrition and sodomy.
Basically you want to prevent masturbation for extended periods of time you need to put men under so much pressure they crack physically.
CD: 2) We would expect sexually alluring advertisement to have less impact on Christian men than their secular counterparts. There eyes would not be drawn to the female model in the same way and their brains would not make the same positive association between the model and the product.
Madam: I don’t think a man can control his initial reaction to craftily presented sex. It’s just a fact that men are visually stimulated, so if they are bombarded with alluring advertising, they are going to respond as expected. But a Christian man who has allowed/is allowing his mind to be renewed, and is seeing this advertising with the mind of Christ, will see something different.
To those still struggling, self-control would help them not dwell on what they have seen.
OK so let me follow up.
1) What exactly would the renewed man see?
2) How many men are renewed enough? 1%, 10%, 50%? Basically with a high number we would expect to see a difference in advertising effectiveness.
BTW as an aside, sexual imagery involving women in ads is actually more effective on women than men. What is the effect of the holy spirit / self control on women as far as there responses?
CD: 4) We would expect to see much lower levels of porn usage among divorced or widowed Christian men than similarly aged secular counterparts.
Madam: This one compares to #1. The use of porn is not God glorifying, it’s committing adultery or fornication in one’s heart, so it’s sin. Period. That alone SHOULD put Christian men and women off using it, and if they still struggle, self-control in this area should be a priority.
OK but again same as #1 there isn’t a difference in usage patterns. So I understand what we should see, but why don’t we see that?
CD: 5) If you are a paedo-baptist then studies of masturbation involving Christian teens would show much lower levels than among secular teens.
Madam: I don’t know what a paedo-baptist is, excuse my ignorance.
I think some parents and youth leaders make a huge mistake when they don’t clearly explain to the teens in their care how addictive and destructive masturbation can be, and how it’s not part of God’s design.
Paedo-baptist are people who baptize infants. That is they believe young children can be Christians / saved…
I find myself shaking my head and asking, like Michael Pearl, where have the real men gone?
What year do you think the sexual standards were good? Is there some time where we could look back and say that’s the right way to do things?
Letitia, after all this brouhaha I wanted to get back to this that you said in your post:
We have allowed the ungodly secular world determine what is impermissible and “dirty” for believers instead of believers charging the world with its perversion and taking back sexual pleasure under the dominion of the kingdom of God.
And say that I agree! I agree that just because something is perverse when it is done for lustful selfish reasons does not mean that is it perverse when done in an exchange of marital love. Doing whatever-it-is in such a context redeems whatever-it-is. I think this is what you were trying to say and I hear you and agree.
I’m sorry my original point ended up getting blown into what seemed like a bigger disagreement than it really was. I only wanted to say that there can still be perverse or disrespectful sex in marriage (iow, unhealthy selfish views of sex brought into marriage, on the part of either or both spouses), as well as inappropriate views of marital sex, and I see some (not Driscoll, b/c I haven’t heard enough of him to know) seemingly condoning this, and I wish they wouldn’t!
A friend –
I’m fielding too many different issues. The stuff from the centerfold syndrome seems reasonable to me. There is a book by Ariel Levy called “Female chauvinists pigs” which is about the effect of embracing raunch culture on women which if you like centerfold syndrome you might like.
On the other hand I’m not engaging it because I’m trying to fundamentally deal with objective measures and most of what is in that that book is impossible to measure.
But if you really want another subthread lets start with your first idea that the orgasm levels are too high. Your concept is that those levels are too high to be “natural” because they wouldn’t work for one women and hence are a result of emotional problems. Lets look at animals that presumably don’t have emotional problems. Stud horses in good health generally will impregnate about 100 mares per season and even those that are having difficulty will do about 40 (a breeding season is a little over 2 months not a year). Roosters can outperform human men by a lot as many as 100 different sexual partners back to back. Certain monkey species have much higher rates (like the bonobo), with several encounters daily. And then of course there is the insane levels of sexual production for fish, insects…. Also there are many human men that have polygamous marriages.
As for “And eventually- the novelty wears off and it becomes boring, so he has to seek out more kinky and novel images…
And this can interfere with a man’s ability to form a bond with a real woman- who will consistently fall short of the visual ideal that he can’t have.”
It can doesn’t really mean anything. If this were true for a large portion of the population we’d expect to see men forming close emotion with very pretty centerfold style women and having distant sex based relationships with women of other body types. Arguable the opposite is likely true, men who marry primarily “for looks” have more distant relationship with their wives then men who marry “for personality”.
TL —
If I’m understanding this statement correctly, you are implying that sin may or may not cause negative (our assertions to which you are disagreeing) effects.
So my question to you is….
1. do you believe pornography to be sinful
2. do you believe pornography causes negative effects in ones life.
3. do you believe one can sin and not suffer negatively in any way from it.
(3) is really the key question. Obviously sin by definition causes separation from God which is a negative.
But if you were to rephrase as:
3a. do you believe one can sin and not suffer negatively in any material from it.
Then yes. A murderer who isn’t caught. Jacob and Rebecca’s sin against Esau in conspiring to steal his birthright. The whole notion of substitutionary atonement is that the natural consequences of sin can be averted.
No onto (2). I think that pornography causes no discernible mid or long term effect. Obviously there are some effects short term. I got around to finishing my post porn addiction.
I’ve responded to (1) about 20x times now.
Eric –
Look at the comment you said amen to. If it wasn’t meant that way then I’ll withdrawal my comment.
JLP –
I agree. I’m not going to change your mind.
TL –
I wrote a response to you and it got eaten. So I’ll be brief.
In answer to your 3
1) I’ve answered about 20x.
2) Not mid or long term.
3) I assume you mean material effects, since obviously all sin causes negative spiritual effects. In which case yes. Take a murder who is never caught. For a biblical example: Jacob and Rebecca’s conspiracy to steal Esau’s birthright.
CD, I’m just going to repeat back what I think you’re saying because this conversation has gone all over the place and I’d really like to see what you are saying clearly.
so, you don’t think that pornography has long term effects on ones life. Perhaps, that should be clarified. If one only watches it once or a few times and then seeks to turn completely away from it, I’d agree. However, if a person spends a year watching pornography I suspect that it will be difficult to erase the effects on ones life. And the longer one involves oneself, the less likely one will be able to erase the habits and views from ones thinking and sexual desires. I do know several men who have had that response. To my knowledge they have never been able to recover, so it is still affecting their lives and relationships.
Do you agree with my thinking here?
Also regarding the first question, could you please just repeat it one more time as I cannot seem to find where you have clearly said whether you believe pornography is sin or not. And it would make discussion clearer.
TL –
First off thank you for responding directly.
so, you don’t think that pornography has long term effects on ones life. Perhaps, that should be clarified. If one only watches it once or a few times and then seeks to turn completely away from it, I’d agree. However, if a person spends a year watching pornography I suspect that it will be difficult to erase the effects on ones life. And the longer one involves oneself, the less likely one will be able to erase the habits and views from ones thinking and sexual desires.
I assume by a year watching you mean something like 200 sessions of 5-30min each over the course of a year not literally a year watching: 365 sessions of 12+hrs each.
You’ve given a long list of effects. Can you name one that there is good evidence is connected to porn and unquestionably negative? That is the main point of contention that such effects exist.
I do know several men who have had that response. To my knowledge they have never been able to recover, so it is still affecting their lives and relationships.
What does “still affecting their lives and relationships” mean? What does “recover” mean. Often the assumption here, and on the porn recovery sites is that behaviors which are characteristic of male sexuality are in fact diseased and caused by porn.
So take a simple example, that even works for a woman. A woman is gay but loves her husband. She is using female porn as her primary sexual outlet and female lovers a few times a year. She makes herself sexually available to her husband frequently but finds the act of intercourse with him tedious and slightly unpleasant. She is Christian and believes those acts immoral, and thinks she is porn addicted.
What is “recovery”? If you by recovery you mean she becomes a happy heterosexual then no she is not likely to recover ever. If by recovery you mean she stops using porn things like:
– she divorces, gets into a sexually fulfilling lesbian relationship
– she convinces her husband to take on another wife who has similar proclivities
– she having a lot of lovers on the side
might all cause the porn usage to drop off drastically. So would things like:
– she increases the amount of work and stress in her life and becomes exhausted and nervous decreasing sex drive sharply
– frequent non pornographic masturbation
So what’s recovery?
Also regarding the first question, could you please just repeat it one more time as I cannot seem to find where you have clearly said whether you believe pornography is sin or not. And it would make discussion clearer.
I don’t think we can create sins. There is no sin called “pornography” in the bible, and the NT was written in a culture with lots more of it than our culture so it absence means that pornography is not intrinsically sinful. There are a lot of sins associated with porn: like lust, harlotry and spilling seed. I.E. porn itself is not sinful but it may not be possible to engage with porn in a non sinful manner.
I think when people talk about sins (and this isn’t specific to porn) they tend to be casual in their speech and their thinking. For example, when you gave an answer to what made porn sinful you gave “viewing other people naked” as a sin. In which case is being a doctor or nurse sinful? Is working as missionary in a country like south africa where women go topless sinful? Is going to a gym sinful? If the answer is no, then there is no sin called “viewing other people naked” either.
But the most important thing is I reject the connection you keep trying to make between “is it material harmful” which is a question about the material universe and “is it sinful” which is a question about the spiritual universe. Unless you believe in natural law both neither or either one individually can be true. But this is a Protestant board so I figure you are coming from a place of sola scriptura.
CD-Host,
What is your response to this:
Sex outside of marriage is sinful.
Porn is made by people who are not married having sex with one another (although they can be, let’s feel safe in assuming that most are not).
Even if the act of viewing others having sex is not in itself sinful, purchasing and viewing porn encourages unmarried sex, along with the sins that you mentioned: lust, harlotry, etc.
If you don’t consider sex outside of marriage to be sinful, there isn’t much point in any of this conversation, and I wonder why you pursue it so vigorously.
CD-Host:
I “Amen”-ed this:
CD, if you have come here to argue the benefits [and/or the harmlessness - EricW] of porn, you really have come to the wrong place. It’s not going to fly.
NOTHING in the above statement(s) questions, let alone addresses, your salvation. I am simply agreeing with “TL on July 15, 2009 at 4:32 pm” that this forum/blog is the wrong place to argue for the benefits or harmlessness of pornography, and a probable waste of one’s time if one tries to do so.
Again… What in my “Amen” questioned your salvation?
Even if the act of viewing others having sex is not in itself sinful, purchasing and viewing porn encourages unmarried sex, along with the sins that you mentioned: lust, harlotry, etc.
I agree fornication is sinful that one is specifically in the bible. As for the encouragement argument. It is subtle whether the amount of fornication increases with pornography or decreases. Certainly there is fornication among the actors. On the other hand there might be substantially less among the viewers. As people talk about porn use skyrocketing in the last 40 years, prostitution has dropped off incredibly sharply. In the 19th century you see structural support for prostitution in government.
From the high around the 1850’s and 60’s of 4% of the female population was involved in prostitution today we are down to one in ten thousand. Lets do some approximate figures for a moment:
You have to decide what the number would be today. Lets say 2% of the female population are prostitutes in the USA engaging in 1000 fornication acts per year is three billion acts of fornication per year.
production of 10,000 pornographic videos each involving 10 acts of fornication is a hundred thousand acts of fornication per year. There would still be 15 million acts from the remaining prostitutes In other words a 99.5% reduction in fornication looking at prostitution and pornography or a 99.997% reduction just looking at prostitution vs. pornography.
Now I’m not going to attribute all the of the decrease in prostitution to the expansion of pornography. The explosion in premarital sex has a lot to do with the drop in prostitution as well. But on the other hand the increase in porn usage has induced a large drop in the amount of premarital sex. We could do a similar analysis here, but it is more complicated since there are more factors at play. Finally all this doesn’t even examine the effect on things like adultery which is much more serious and way down over the last 2 generations.
But in answer to your question I think it is unlikely that porn in a net increase in acts of fornication. It probably results in at least 1/1000 decrease in fornication, that is each act filmed replaces 1000 acts that would otherwise be occurring off camera.
Since the purpose of Letitia’s blog was not to justify porn, I think it’s time this blog be closed.
July 16, 2009 at 12:52 pm jlp_that’s_me!
Since the purpose of Letitia’s blog was not to justify porn, I think it’s time this blog be closed.
Amen. (and I am not questioning CD-Host’s salvation with this “Amen”)
May I ask the moderators not to let any posts go through that supports porn. I am really offended by porn and the support of porn, and I know others here are also.
Letitia,
I want to apologize for bringing up the topic of porn. It ended up ruining your blog. And for that I am sorry.
I think that there is a moral principal here that is related to the subject of porn and other people’s nakedness (outside of medical reasons). It is not morally acceptable to view other people completely naked as a recreational exercise, especially in the act of sex.
CD’s argument seems to be that porn is less harmful than prostitution, so should be acceptable. It’s the same argument that has often been used for marijuana smokers. Marijuana is less harmful than most of the other addictive drugs, so should be legal. All of it is harmful. None should be acceptable.